WATCH! Irish Motorist Doing Something Insanely Dangerous To Avoid Paying The Toll On The M4 / M6 Motorway
Dangerous driving and careless driving are serious offences in Irish road traffic law.
A case in point is this video of an idiot driver who put lives at risk just to avoid a toll charge of €2.90.
Look at this reckless driver in this captured footage below, who was filmed making an extremely dangerous manoeuvre on the M4 - M6 Motorway just to avoid paying a toll.
You can see this driver is on the overtaking lane of the motorway, then the driver proceeds to slow down dangerously and looks like it actually stopped in the fast lane, making at least 2 cars following closely behind, swerve into the inside lane to avoid crashing into the car and causing a catastrophic collision.
This driver does not adhere to any of the traffic norms like mirror, mirror, looking over the shoulder, signalling and maneuvering when safe to do so, but instead, this driver makes a 90 degree turn, directly in contravention of the law and creates a situation where someone could have been killed or seriously injured.
Not only does the car following closely behind have to swerve out of the way but the vehicle recording the footage is also put in danger as it has to slow down to avoid a collision.
There is no excuse for a dangerous manoeuvre like this, especially not for the purpose of avoiding a toll charge or because you have missed your exit. This surely comes under the description of dangerous driving?
Dangerous driving
This is covered by Section 53(1) of the Road Traffic Act, 1961 and involves driving in a manner which a prudent person would recognise as involving an unjustifiable risk of harm to the public.
"53.-(1) A person shall not drive a vehicle in a public place at a speed or in a manner which, having regard to all circumstances of the case (including the nature, condition and use of the place and the amount of traffic which then actually is or might be reasonably be expected then to be therein) is dangerous to the public."
Dangerous to the public is not defined in statute but it would seem that this can be defined as; driving in a manner which a reasonably prudent driver, having knowledge of all the circumstances as could be proved in court, would clearly recognise as involving unjustifiable and definite risk of harm to the public.
Careless driving
Careless driving is covered under Section 52(1) of the 1961 Road Traffic Act as amended by section 50, Road Traffic Act, 1968 and involves driving in public place “without due care and attention”.
From the legislation we can see that there is no statutory definition of ‘due care and attention’ but this kind of care and attention should be fairly obvious to most drivers. Generally it is a standard of care that a reasonably prudent driver should exercise while driving which involves compliance with the rules of the road in Ireland.
There are only three defences in Irish road traffic law that could be taken into consideration when charged with dangerous or careless driving and they are:
1. Automatism
2. Duress eg a defence of driving in terror
3. Mechanical defect-a sudden mechanical defect, due to no fault of the driver
Penalties can run up to a fine of €1,500 and/or 3 months imprisonment, 5 penalty points and a possible disqualification which is discretionary on the first offence and mandatory on second or subsequent offences within 3 yeas of a previous offence.
Driving without reasonable consideration
Driving without reasonable consideration is a less serious charge and is set out in section 51A(1) of the Road Traffic Act 1961.
Again, there is no definition in Irish law for “driving without reasonable consideration” but it is generally considered to be acting like a nuisance on the roads.
This offence attracts 2 penalty points and a small fixed penalty fine.
There have been amendments made in the Road Traffic (No. 2) Act, 2011. New definitions of driving without reasonable consideration, careless driving, dangerous driving, driving of a dangerously defective vehicle, and parking a vehicle in a dangerous position have been made in section 4 Road Traffic (no. 2) act, 2011.
M4 (Kilcock-Enfield-Kinnegad) motorway is located in the mid-east of Ireland and passes through County Meath, County Westmeath and County Kildare. The toll road is approximately 35km west of Dublin on the Dublin to Sligo / Dublin to Galway route. The toll applies to the section of the M4 between Junction 8 (Kilcock) and Junction 10 (Kinnegad east).
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